…but most of the time, I take the photos – write the post, upload the photos, think “job done”, click preview and then wonder why the hell I bothered. Today is one of those days.

I would blame the camera, the lighting, the mis-calibration of your monitor… but the truth is, my face absorbs colour. Unless of course, I wear a shade from one of my Sleek palettes which seem to encourage my chemistry to saturate the colour to the max, turning me into some kind of deformed caricature of myself.

Grumbles aside, and seeing as this was intended to be a FOTD post, I’d better get on and list the products just as I would for any other FOTD post… who cares if you can’t actually see them right?

I’m liking the MAC Studio Fix more than I thought. It’s a little drying and perhaps a touch too matte for me but I mix in some Fluid Sheer to give it a boost of luminescence and I’m quite enjoying it. The Kevyn Aucoin SSE is starting to work for me now that I’m using it to conceal rather than as a fuller-coverage foundation – though I am still determined to work out how to get full-face coverage from it. I received the Trish McEvoy Golden Bronzer last year and it’s a sheerer formula which is quite forgiving despite my pale skintone, it has a subtle sparkle and is quite buildable. I’m not the best at applying/blending bronzer though… consider me still a bit of a bronzer noob.

The eyes were the most disappointing aspect of today’s look. The Trish McEvoy shadow I bought for my palette, although a beautiful colour didn’t create much impact – which to be honest, is fair enough – it is intended to be a sheer wash of beautiful rosy taupe… nothing too dramatic, it’s my fault for not bothering with a contour. I’m sitting on the fence when it comes to the MUFE Smoky Lash mascara, I know that many of you swear by it and although it’s certainly quite impressive at creating some drama, I feel that it’s a little prone to clumping and I don’t like the way it makes my lashes feel. Finally, the Estee Lauder Intense Kajal Eye Crayon in 01 Dramatic Black seemed to look more ‘dramatic plum’ on my waterline… perhaps it’s those sleepless nights finally showing through!

The one component of today’s FOTD that I thought I’d be indifferent about (sheer lip colours – “meh”), I ended up really liking. The Clinique Chubby Stick is such a nice formula to wear and for me to reach for it, well… perhaps I was feeling more ‘subtle’ than I was letting-on! You won’t see a huge amount of colour with this range but the Oversized Orange gives my lips a nice polish and a hint of warmth.

I’ve got a couple more that I’ve been sent with the view to ‘mixing and matching’ to create my own custom colour. Honestly, I’m far too lazy/skint for that (especially when I’m not generally crazy about sheer lips) but I’ll do a swatch of the ones I’ve got soon and will let you know which is my favourite!

But seriously, what’s the point in a makeup blog if you can’t see the makeup? hahaah. Perhaps now is the time to lobby Mr. L that you know… I like, TOTES need to buy a studio setup and then just spend all my day putting makeup on… taking photos…. taking makeup off…. putting makeup on…. taking photos…. taking makeup off…. eating kebabs…

Set up is a big window, Camera is a 50D, lens is a Tamron 17-50mm held at arms length, Pose is whatever I can get away with doing just so long as I don’t have to look directly down the lens because then I start squirming.

I can never get any photo of myself to look any sense at all, I do think you do yourself a disservice though, it is a flattering angle and I too love the inner rim khol xx PS have I spelt khol right? looks wrong to me.

Oh god yeah, you don’t spend 3/4 of your life in the morbidly obese category without learning how to hold your camera high enough above your head so as to give yourself armache for the foreseeable. I blame myspace.

My favourite product I’m sporting today is my Becca Beach Tint in Apricot. I love those Beach Tints!
And I’m with you- I don’t like MUFE Smoky Lash. It’s clumpy, hard to get to look nice, and dries out in a week.

I think your photos look great as photos of oneself. And I’m impressed with your consistency– always good photos and you always look pretty. But if you’re aiming more for documentation of products, have you looked at (a) your contrast and brightness settings and (b) your lighting? I never noticed it before (meaning it’s not IMO at all obvious) but it looks to me as if maybe you’re kicking up the brightness and contrast just enough to minimize something minor (for me it’d be crows feet) and in the process losing subtle color variations that you _want_ to show.

Haha, no – I don’t kick up the contrast or brightness to create any illusions.

This is how I shoot, which will probably only be interesting if you’re interested in photography and how cameras work.

I shoot in manual and spot meter to set my exposure directly for my skin at just under +1 – if you know about digital cameras, you’ll recognise that they are manufactured to expose 0 to reflect a middle grey exposure. Since my skin is lighter than middle grey, it would underexpose the entire image at this default setting. Colours would be less vivid and the overall image would be muddy.

Similarly, when shooting darker skinned people, I manually set my exposure to almost -1 or less, depending on the skintone. This ensures that the camera doesn’t read their skintone as middle grey and overexpose the entire image.

I think in this case – I was stood a little too close to the window, the light seems, if anything, harsher than normal… more direct and less diffused and I can see almost=blown highlights on the pads of my cheeks.

So, in one respect – you are right, this image is overexposed. On the other, it’s definitely not something I do intentionally. Always happy to show off my pores/fine lines/flaky dry bits/hairy chin/boobs in the name of a good post!

you’re like me, you have naturally high contrast coloring and enjoy high contrast photography. What this means in photographing makeup is that you have to look like a trollop in person for it to show. Put the same colors on but MUCH heavier. It’s my trick to an amazing driver’s license/photo ID pictures too. Okay, not really my secret, I learned it modeling as a teenager.

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